Pune: Jai Bhosale was among the 74 students from Pune district who were brought back from Kota, Rajasthan, on Friday night by four special Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) buses.
Bhosale, a resident of Chikhali, said he is happy to come back home finally and has been asked by authorities to be under home quarantine.
Bhosale and around 1,800 students from different districts for Maharashtra were stranded in Kota which is famous for its coaching classes for competitive exams.
These 1800 students were brought back after the State Government sent 72 buses from Dhule. The buses reached Kota on Wednesday and started back on Thursday at 7 pm.
“If everything goes well after lockdown, we will go back for exam preparation,” said 19-year-old Bhosale who had landed in Kota on March 17 to prepare for the engineering entrance exam.
Kota, about 944 km from Pune, has hundreds of coaching institutes that provide tuition to over 20 lakh students from across the country.
“On Friday midnight the students reached Swargate Depot in four buses belonging to Dhule Depot and were screened for COVID-19 symptoms by medical staff before letting them go home with advice to stay in home quarantine for 14 days,” said officials.
“There were 74 students and ten drivers. They were screened by medical staff from Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). None of them are showing any symptoms. They were stamped with home quarantine stamps and sent home with their parents. The students were from various parts of the city and other towns in the interior of the district,” said Pune MSRTC Divisional Controller Yamini Joshi.
To ensure social distancing, each bus carried only 25 students or less. The students were asked to maintain the distance for around two metres from another student.
Om Borate from Rajgurunagar who was in Kota preparing for engineering entrance exams, said, “We were eagerly waiting for the bus. When the bus arrived, we thanked the government; finally, we were moving. The bus took 24 hours to reach Swargate. All four buses reached till 12.30 am. We were served food and water during the journey. The drivers were very helpful.”
